Ritter Springs Park

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Another fall foliage outing we enjoyed a week or so ago….

Ritter Springs Park is north of Springfield. We took a scenic route to get there and then hiked to the lake and back. I was with my husband and daughter who were intent on hiking rather than photography….so I didn’t take many pictures.

There were lots of oaks and hickories…hackberries…sweet gum. I picked up several cones from the Norway Spruce that was near the parking lot; they will make a fourth type of pinecone in my tree educational trunk!

The water level at the lake was low but still flowing out into the stream below the dam. There were dead leaves in the shallow water beginning to decay…lots of food for the macroinvertebrates in the water.

I read on the park’s web page that there is a summer camp there. I wondered how they handled the campers when thunderstorms come though since there is only a pavilion (not a building).  Otherwise, the place has a lot to offer for a summer camp.

Valley Water Mill Park

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The MSU Identifying Woody Plants class went to Valley Water Mill Park last week. It is northeast of Springfield MO and includes a variety of habitats: upland forest, bottomland forest, wetland, glade, prairie, savanna, and lake/stream. It’s a place I will want to visit again.

We saw a lot of trees we had seen before and some new ones too. The fall is changing the way we go about identifying the woody plants we’d seen before.

The bald cypresses are losing their needles…and there were trees at this park with knees (the previous ones were growing in locations where they did not produce knees). The knees make them easy to ID.

The buttonbush had lost its leaves, but the round seed heads make it easy enough to ID.

There were lots of sycamore leaves on the ground…many were huge and, sometimes, still green.

A Wahoo was obvious but our teacher said there was aphid damage too which is frustrating.

Poison ivy berries…new-to-me…good to know.

Black cherry bark – of a young tree and an older tree.

Some new species:

A bittersweet – no leaves but lots of fruit.

A chestnut – ID from the bur alone down to genus.

Japanese honeysuckle. This is one I recognize easily but I hadn’t noticed the seeds before.

Coralberry. This might be one I add to my yard someday – although I don’t know where yet.

Black haw or cherry-leafed viburnum is even more likely to find its way into my yard. It might make a good planting in the bowl left from a tree in my front yard that was removed before we bought the house.  It is a shrub that does well in shade so it might work to fill in between the two maples and provide flowers in the spring and fall/winter food for wildlife.

The lake was low even though there had been about an inch of rain the previous night. The area has been in drought for so long that it is going to take time to replenish the water level. There was evidence of beaver (many of the trees have wire cages around their base for protection.

Valley Water Mill Park might become one of my favorite places in the Springfield area.  My husband and I will probably make a ‘field trip’ there and walk the whole loop around the lake. I also filled out the form to volunteer for their education/outreach programs.

Meadow at Lake Springfield Boathouse

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I opted to drive myself the Lake Springfield boathouse last week so I could photograph the meadow/prairie and the other plantings near the boathouse before the rest of the Identifying Woody Plants class arrived. The beautyberry was spectacular! I am so glad I planted some in my yard recently and hope it makes it through the winter to be a great plant next year.

The common milkweed had already been cut down but there were several pods spilling their seeds where the plants once stood.

The asters seemed to be hosting the most insects in the meadow/prairie area. I was thrilled to see Monarch butterflies; they were large ones…the ones that go all the way to Mexico for the winter. The thistles were releasing their seeds and the golden rods were the second most popular nectar plant for insects.

It was a great day to see the meadow in fall glory!

Springfield Botanical Gardens Field Trip

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The field class I am taking at Missouri State University made a trip to the Springfield Botanical Gardens in late August – on a sunny day when the temperature was in the high 90s and the humidity was high too. We tried to stop in shady spots and didn’t walk all that far. There were no misshapes but everyone was glad that the field trip did not last as long as it could have.

I opted to wear my photovest so that I could put my water bottle in the back pocket; my field notebook and pencil was in the front pocket and I had my small point and shoot (Canon Powershot SX730 HS) on my sling strap. It worked well to write notes and take pictures. The point and shoot worked better for me than my phone which I used in the previous class during a field walk around the campus because the camera is easier to hold steady and has better optics for zooming into the parts of trees.

Here are some of the trees we stopped to talk about:

Norway Spruce - Picea abies – Pinaceae: with its large cones that have visible resin and dangling branches

Eastern Hemlock – Tsuga canadensis – Pinaceae: with green and brown cones and flat needles

American Elm – Ulmus americana – Ulmaceae: with its doubly serrated leaves and vase shape

Blue Spruce – Picea pungens – Pinaceae: with its glaucus needles, papery cones, and pegs where needles used to be

Flowering Dogwood – Cornus florida – Cornaceae: with its bark like alligator skin and red drupes

There was an old Bradford Pear which we stopped to look at…and talk about the invasive aspect of this tree that was highly recommended for planting not that long ago. (Bradford/Callery Pear – Pyrus calleryana – Rosaceae)

Yellow/Tulip poplar – Liriodendron tulipfera – Magnoliaceae: with braided bark…I didn’t take a picture since this a very familiar tree for me!

Silver Maple – Acer saccharinum – Sapindaceae: with heavily indented 5-lobed leaves with the silver underside

I couldn’t resist taking at least one flower picture while we were at the garden!

Springfield Botanical Garden Gardens

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Last week my husband and I visited the Springfield (Missouri) Botanical Gardens when the temperature was warm…not yet hot. Our first stop was the pollinator garden – hoping to photograph some butterflies. There were many plants blooming around the butterfly house (we were there a bit before it opened) but we only saw some skippers around a clump of cone flowers; I had been hoping to see some Monarchs or tiger swallowtails or zebra swallowtails, etc. so I was a little disappointed. But I enjoyed trying to capture the shape of skipper’s eye.

I reverted to taking pictures of plants…the new growth of a young tree, some native honeysuckle, the different greens of a redbud, some hibiscus. I’m not sure what the pink flower is; it was planted near the Botanical Center.

The daylilies were still beautiful but past their peak. There were two gardeners taking off spent blooms while we were there.

I took two perspectives of the Monarch sculpture/playground. I hadn’t noticed before that the mouth of the caterpillar is chomping on the leaf! The area is well maintained…no peeling paint.

We were only in the gardens for about an hour, but the day was getting hotter. We were both glad we had water bottles in the car!

Zooming – May 2024

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After collecting the images I wanted to feature this month, there seemed to be more distinct reasons for why the amount of zoom was used.

One image – from the Anthony Chapel at Garvan Woodland Gardens – was composed to capture the pattern of glass in the ceiling.

5 images were composed to get a near macro view of flowers and water droplets without being very close to the subjects.

The zoom was used to fill the frame in 8 of the images. It works in almost every situation! Flowers and landscapes with structures outdoors as well as museums and nature center exhibits are seen below.

Probably the rationale for zooming I enjoy the most is when the camera allows me to ‘see’ better than I would with just my eyes. There are 7 images in this category this month: a close up of a peacock and some flamingo feathers at Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, Missouri; tiling on a bathhouse dome and a magnolia flower in a large tree overhanging the street in Hot Springs, Arkansas; an ebony jewelwing on a fern, a fairy house and a Ouachita Map Turtle at Garvan Woodland Gardens.

Sometimes I remember the rules and zoom to position the subject along one of the lines…to the left or right of center in lieu of switching to a portrait orientation and filling the frame.

I am savoring my favorite zoomed images of May 2024.

Springfield’s Artsfest

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We almost cancelled our plans to go to Springfield’s Artsfest because thunderstorms were in the forecast….but they happened in the early morning rather than during the prime time for Artsfest. We got there about 11 and appreciated the Missouri State University parking garage…much easier than street parking in the area. We enjoyed the long row of artsy vendors along with food trucks, local government/non-profits information tables, and musicians on small stages just far enough away from each other to not clash. It was warm enough that we got a cup of Pineapple Whip almost immediately!

Last year I bought earrings for me and a stainless-steel iris for my mother (for Mother’s Day). I’m not wearing earrings as frequently these days, so I was determined to not buy any new ones (and opted to not even look because they are just so tempting both from habit and my enjoyment of wearable art). I couldn’t resist buying a stainless-steel spider mum from the same vendor that made the iris.

I stopped to talk to one of the artists whose botanical paintings are so textured that they are almost a sculpture coming out of the canvas. I was surprised at the various materials she used in her work; it depended on how far the texture projected from the canvas!

After a little over an hour – we were ready for lunch and opted to stop by my daughter’s house before we headed to a BBQ place. There is always something to notice in her yard:

A small insect on a miniature rose.

A vine that had died last year after an overzealous yard person sprayed too much weed killer nearby coming back and full of unfurling blooms.

The tree that was also impacted by the same killing event is also recovering although some limbs appear to have died and need to be pruned away. I always like the thick lichen on the trunk.

The spider mum was another way of celebrating my mother’s life; when we got home, I put the pink iris from last year in front of one of my office windows (I brought it home when my parents’ house was sold) and the spider mum under the pine tree where I can see it through another window. Good memories for May 2024 and 2023!

Out and About with Company

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When my sister and brother-in-law were visiting – stopping for a few days at a RV park near us before they continued on their month long travels – we enjoyed the botanical gardens and the zoo, then decided on a less active day starting with brunch at my house (I made a ‘full oven’ of food: egg casserole, chunks of seasoned new potatoes, and pumpkin bread) followed by a walk around the Springfield Art Museum and then the Springfield Conservation Nature Center.

The art museum was opening their Art in Bloom event – with the fashion component being the main part available for viewing. My favorite was the creation that was inspired by the hallway long tilted sky – probably my favorite piece in the museum!

Of course, there were plenty of other things to enjoy in the museum – other fashion and art works. I’ve picked some of my favorite views from the pictures it took.

Then we were off to the nature center…not for a hike (one of my guests was having back problems) but for the center itself. The turtle tank was being renovated so there were two large snapping turtles in a tank that was too small for them long term but offered views from two sides. It was a great photographic opportunity.

And then they headed off to prepare for the next leg of their trip.

Springfield Botanical Gardens – April 2024

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I made my second visit to the Springfield Botanical Gardens in late April when one of my sisters was visiting; my husband and I had gone to the Kite and Pinata Festival earlier in the month. The tulips had been in full bloom during the first visit. There were a few left in late April, but the irises and columbines were the big show. I noticed some native honeysuckle and clematis blooming as well. I made it a goal to make a walk around the gardens at least once a month until cold weather comes again next fall. There will always be something new to see.

My sister and I walked through the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden after viewing the gardens close to the Botanical Center building. I used my Friends of the Garden membership in lieu of the admission fee. I made a small cairn on one of the posts near the rock garden…this time choosing the same type of stone for all three rocks.

The Japanese lanterns are always some of my favorite photographic subjects in the garden. I like the greenery around many of them. The pines are there all year round, but the grasses and yellow iris are only around during the warm months.

The yellow iris grow around the ponds – along with the bald cypress knees that always make the water’s edge look more interesting.

It was a good way to spend a couple of hours….enjoy the beautiful gardens and get in some steps for the day!

Springfield Botanical Garden – March 2024

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Springfield Botanical Gardens is one of my favorite places; I will try to go at least once a month for the rest of this year. We went on a sunny cool day in the late morning. The sky was almost clear and the light was very bright….making for some ‘almost high key’ pictures of the blossoms on a tree growing close to where we parked.

There were other trees/bushes in bloom as well.

The maples were already making seeds (i.e. past blooming). The seeds were still colorful.

Spring bulbs were still blooming….

But I was more interested in the new growth all over the hosta garden. It will be very lush this summer.

I took some pictures of the garden mosaic…carefully avoiding getting my shadow in the picture.

Lenten roses were blooming. My daughter has some in her yard too. They do seem to grow well but I tend to not like them because their blooms face downward.

There were birds in the gardens too. Lots of robins. We heard a brown thrasher and then saw it high in the tree….too high for a good picture. I did get a picture of a blue bird though!

My husband was very tolerant of my walking around to take pictures even though he didn’t see anything he was interested in photographing. He seemed very intent on macro photography….and didn’t see any opportunities. I find that the zoom on my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) is good enough to take some ‘almost macro’ pictures without being close to the flowers (or birds) at all!

Springfield Yard – March 2024

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My daughter’s yard in Springfield MO is full of springtime. I visited to help get pollinator/butterfly garden seeds planted. After we got that done – I enjoyed the beauty of the yard which has been a work in progress since the house was built in the 1950s…and my daughter’s since 2021.

The oakleaf hydrangea is leaving out; the plant gets more sun this time of year before the big trees get their leaves. I noticed it as we were picking up sticks around the base of her river birch and oak tree.

The vinca, growing in a bed thick with leaves from last fall, is blooming.

Her wood hydrangea still has flowers dried from last fall…not leafing out yet in its shady location.

A Japanese quince was blooming. I hadn’t noticed this in her yard before, but I must have just missed being there at the right time.s. Would birds get ‘drunk’ from the (probably fermented) fruit?

The crabapple tree was full of buds – and some crabapples left from last season. Most of the fruits had been eaten and I wondered why there are still some on the trees. Would birds get ‘drunk’ from the (probably fermented) fruit?

There is a young cherry tree near the corner of her front yard. The blooms were everywhere.

A red bud is in the other corner also full of blooms. My daughter commented that it really is misnamed since it isn’t red.

We also observed that most of the plants damaged from a too zealous application of herbicide by a yard crew last year seem to be recovering with the new season.

What a great time to get outdoors and into a garden….

Sequiota Cave Boat Tour

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My daughter enjoyed a boat tour of Sequiota Cave (in Springfield, Missouri’s Sequiota Park) last spring and encouraged us to sign up when they were offered this year. They only do the guided tour a couple of weekends in the spring and fall – leaving the cave to the roosting bats for the rest of the year. The instructions were to ‘bring your own headlamps’ so we grabbed our headlamps that we have for astronomy nights/emergencies.

It was my first visit to the park, and I was a little disappointed that Galloway Creek was dry. It has been channelized in the area near the cave entrance with abutments and concrete additions. There was a bumpy area of concrete that might work to slow the water a bit.

The buds on some of the young trees near the sign-in pavilion were colorful close up.

We picked out hardhats (which seemed to be fall squash colors!) and flotation vests and gloves for our visit to the cave. The boats were loaded at the mouth of the cave; they held 4 people (including the guide). Our guide worked for a non-profit associated with water quality and was volunteering for this event. I appreciated his comments about the cave and its water quality (and the water quality of the region).

As we entered the cave, my husband took a picture of the mouth of the cave with the truck/trailer that brought in the boats.

The cave is not pristine in the sense that it was used as a fish hatchery in the 1920s and the mounds that were once mushroom beds are still visible. The water course has been cleared (probaby would not have been navigable by boats originally). Nubs of metal from old infrastructure are still visible. But the cave features are in great shape – still actively growing…unbroken…no algae growth. There are not any blind cave creatures; if there ever were any, they didn’t survive the fish hatchery days.

But there are bats. The ones in residence during our tour were tri-colored bats – roosting alone. They are very small….but stand out because they are often darker than the cave walls (the bat is to the right of center in the picture below). There is a colony of endangered gray bats that roost during their migration that number in the 1000s. We’ll go in September to see their nightly exodus from the cave!

This might be my favorite cave tour! I liked it because it was not as commercial. The only light was from headlamps. The tours happen infrequently enough that there isn’t algae or moss growing on the cave features (although there was fuzzy white mold growing on poop from racoons that wonder quite a way into the cave). Spotting tri-colored bats was a great challenge during the tour. The water flowing through the cave made for lots of drips….but also added to the ambience of being in a cave now being left alone most of the time.

My Favorite Photographs from 2023

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Photography is something I enjoy frequently (one of those hobbies that pop up almost daily!). I’ve picked 2 photos from each month of 2023 for this post. Picking favorites is always a bit of a challenge; looking at the collection as I write this post I realize some were chosen for the light

  • A heron in morning light

  • A backlit dandelion

  • High key image of iris…and then a turkey using the same technique

…some for the subject

  • The busy fox squirrel

  • Two insects in one flower

  • The egret struggling to control a fish

  • The feet of the American Coot

…some because they prompted a strong memory of the place.

  • Driftwood at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge

  • Sculpture in the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House Garden in St. Louis

  • Metal iris and sunrise at my parents’ house

  • Geese on the snow and ice in my neighborhood in Missouri

  • Cairn as the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden in Springfield, MO

  • A flower blooming in December at Josey Ranch Park in Carrollton, TX

Enjoy the mosaic of images (click to see a larger version).

Drive Thru Holiday Lights (Vicariously)

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My husband and daughter drove through two light displays recently and sent me pictures --- another chance for me to enjoy the Springfield, MO area’s holiday decorations vicariously.

Candy Cane Lane at Rutledge-Wilson Farm Park can be experienced as a regular light display or with special glasses that make points of light into candy canes! My daughter is bringing the glasses she purchased when she comes to visit before Christmas; it will be fun to see how they work with the lights on the wreath and reindeer in my parents’ house.

Ozark’s Festival of Lights at Finley River Park is becoming a family tradition. We drove through it last year too. Kudos to Ozark for continuing the display.

Gardens Aglow Vicariously

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I am in Carrollton, Texas this December working with my sisters as we increase the daily assistance for my parents. It is going to be a very different December this year. The yearly tradition (started last year…our first December after moving to the Springfield MO area) of walking through the Springfield Botanical Gardens Gardens Aglow display will be a vicarious one for me this year. My husband and daughter did the walk last week and sent pictures.

It was a drizzly night so they both just used their phones rather than more expensive cameras. There were not many people walking the garden (probably because it was wet) so the pictures don’t have as many silhouettes of people as we had last year. The pictures put me in a holiday mood….even while I accept – even savor - that I am where I need to be, doing what I need to do here in Carrollton this December.

Zooming – November 2023

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November 2023 was a month of contrasts…an increase in day trips (to the Springfield Botanical Garden and Butterfly Palace in Branson) and then the more confined views while a parent was in the hospital/recovering at home. Photography is something I enjoy in almost every circumstance. I am either trying to capture a moment or create an artistic composition. And the zoom feature on my cameras are almost always used!

Springfield Botanical Gardens – October 2023

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A quick walk around the Springfield Botanical Gardens on a sunny fall day – full of photographic opportunities.

I always like the hens and chicks near the Botanical Center. I like the green and red/pink colors…the texture of the plants growing close together. I wondered which plants were the ‘hens.’

There were a few trees in fall color, but most were still green.

The hosta garden waterfall was sunny…and the begonia beside it added a pop of color.

Sometimes the veins of leaves remind me of Zentangle patterns.

There was a female Monarch Butterly on some butterfly weed still blooming in the butterfly garden. It was a larger insect…one that would be migrating south to Mexico.

I saw a black swallowtail in the butterfly garden as well but it flew away before I could photograph it. There were bees and skippers everywhere there were blooming plants – but these photos were taken in the Master Gardeners area.

I took several pictures of hibiscus – probably close to the end of the season for them. This magenta one appealed to me because of the color, the freshness of the petals, and the angle of the flower from my vantage point. Even the shadow of the central part of the flower in the midday sun is appealing.

While many of the flowers are fading fast, there were some that seemed to be in full bloom – the last hoorah of a productive growing season.

Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden – October 2023

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The weather for our Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden visit last week was near perfect: sunny, just under 70 degrees, a little breeze. I photographed every Japanese lantern I noticed!

Fall is just beginning. One of the bald cypress trees was ahead of the others…and the dogwoods always are part of the ‘early’ changers. The water as backdrop or mirror is a big part of the draw for photography in this garden.

There were two cairns left behind by other visitors – one of pinecones and other of small rocks.  Most of the plantings are trees and bushes but there are a few perennials near the entrance.

They are already preparing the garden for Gardens Aglow that will begin on November 24th. The bridge in this picture will be brilliant red during the event! I am already planning to see the garden multiple times during the holidays.

Zooming – October 2023

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The optics of my camera allow me to capture images that are better than I can see with my eyes – flowers, insects, birds, cave formations and seed pods that fill the frame…driftwood isolated from the noise of other things around it….sculpture, glass, and fall gourds specially arranged….sunrises and a sunset….the beauty of a fall morning. Every picture is a memory moment – a visual that also serves as a reminder of a place and mood and relationship with the people that experienced it with me. The places were mostly close to home in southwest Missouri (art museum, meadow, caverns) but also St. Louis and along the route between home and Carrollton TX.

Fantastic Caverns – October 2023

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A cold fall day – the 60 degrees F. tour inside Fantastic Caverns was warmer than outside! We arrived shortly before 10 AM and had almost no wait before our tour (via Jeep-drawn tram) began. I used the ‘night scene’ setting (causing the camera to stack multiple images for each image) to capture the cave scenes. My favorite is a zoomed image of ‘soda straw’ structures on the ceiling – with water droplets visible!

There are plenty of drapery and column formations to photograph. The lighting in the cave does a good job of enhancing the structures. Unfortunately, it also encourages the greening tinge (algae) to some of the formations.

This was my second visit to Fantastic Caverns, and I quickly realized that different guides emphasize different things. For example – I am pretty sure the guide for my first visit did not share that the darker gray color in the formation below is from manganese!

The reddish color in many of the formations is from iron….and the white is calcium carbonate without anything else to provide color.

Back at the visitor center – I enjoyed a display of pumpkins and other squashes/gourds.

Another successful outing…and afterward on the way back to my house we enjoyed a huge BBQ lunch!